23:53 - Sunny PagliaccioNote to self: Do NOT open links on max volume in the middle of a quiet night. Otherwise, not bad. :D

23:52 - ApothecaryFast food workers planning a strike in support of $15/hour wages next month. I'm a tutor in a reading lab at a college and I don't even make that much, a bit of an overestimation of one's importance, don'tcha think?

Here we are again. I say that because Enslaved are beating the proverbial "Nordic Black Metal" horse to death. It seems like this is becoming a standard out of the Northern European Black Metal scene these days. Scary makeup, growling vocals, droning guitars, and a complete lack of direction other than to throw in some "evil" lyrics. Like anyone will ever go as far as Mercyful Fate did in the 80's lyrically? Doubtful, and I haven't seen anyone do it yet.

The only redeeming quality of this band is that the guitars have distortion, other than that it sounds like the rest of an already clichéd mess of metal coming out of northern Europe. It's basically a carbon copy of Immortal or Gorgoroth + (insert any band using the same gimmicks and sound from that region). The guitars drone away with the same simplistic rhythms using a grand total of 3 or 4 bar chords maximum for pretty much the length of any given track. Exhausting? More like headache inducing. The drums are nothing out of the ordinary providing a monotonous driving beat with little or no change, which when compounded with the lack of time changes or anything really interesting at all from the guitars, leaves the listener wondering, where's the beef? Where are the balls this music is supposed to retain which all the fanboys blather about?

Heavy? This couldn't be further from heavy. There's little or no chunk and grind which you'll find in bands like Nevermore or Exhumed. Heavy means driving, deep, rhythmic bass, and double bass drum blast beats with chunky, low, 7 and 8 string guitars. Heavy is music that has bite and gets right up in your face. Enslaved seem to be more about long, drawn out almost symphonic rhythms that never really go anywhere. Where are the time changes? Where are the melodic, blistering solos? Also, what's with all the growling and screaming all the time? Is everyone in Norway really so pissed off that there isn't any time to thoughtfully plan a cd and put some effort into the music?

When did people give up singing for growling, screaming, and grunting as if the vocalist is suffering from a bout of violent diarrhea throughout the entire cd? I like a good growl here and there like Opeth, but after an entire cd of it I want to take an ibuprofen. Enslaved made an attempt at mixing clean vocals with a growl on this cd, but it fell flat like the rest of their music.

The only thing I can fathom about the complete blind-devotion of the fans is that they don't know any better or haven't heard anything better. Enslaved left this listener wanting a hell of a lot more musically and lot less of the exact same tired, angry Nordic "scene," cd after cd. Giving this offering anything over a 3 is being generous.

This cd was a monotonous journey into boredom which would eventually spawn a headache. I actually enjoy bands like Amon Amarth, Ensiferum, and Wintersun because they all offer something musically. Their music actually goes somewhere, and some of the musicianship in these bands is god-like. Enslaved just aren't the caliber of musicians their fans make them out to be. You'll find so much more in bands like Symphony X, Fates Warning, Nevermore, Opeth, Death, Slayer, etc...

I don't hate Enslaved, I just think their music is severely lacking on just about every front. At least it's not Lady Gaga and the guitars are distorted

Let me tell you how I know that an album is hard to digest but great. When I put it on for the first time, most of the songs blur together, it's impossible to tell them apart. The first impression about the album is accentuated by those cool fragments of songs that remain in my memory. During the second listen I manage to hear most of those fragments. Just when I'm about to play the album for the third time to get those last cool bits, I realise that there are some more cool bits that I picked up during my second listen. With every consecutive listen, the number of cool bits increases, and my mind connects them to respective songs. After 10 listens all bits are in place, the picture is complete and my smile is wider than a six-lane freeway, because the album is brilliant.

Written by !J.O.O.E.! on 25.02.2012 at 14:14Every now and then I get some strange torrent of abuse on Facebook from him, moaning about the state of this site yadayadayada. He's still probably seething from all of this.

Heh nice, I suppose it most be very amusing considering that you allow him to write in your page (Asuming he does that... I'm also asuming that you can block him if you wanted to, I don't know about those things of course).... Heh, nothing better than seeing a poor bastard wasting time like that.

Heh nice, I suppose it most be very amusing considering that you allow him to write in your page (Asuming he does that... I'm also asuming that you can block him if you wanted to, I don't know about those things of course).... Heh, nothing better than seeing a poor bastard wasting time like that.

Nah does it via PM's. I probably could block him but not really worth the trouble, and it's always amusing to hear him witter on.

Written by !J.O.O.E.! on 25.02.2012 at 14:42I usually make one attempt to be reasonable and explain things to him but then I get another message back with him prattling on some more. It's then I realise it's a waste of time.

It's funny how fucking nuts that dude went because someone scored an album a 5.9 in a review... not that he was a stable individual beforehand.

Good times hah. He wrote 2 reviews in answer to mine. This one, which is what it is, and a review of that Kamelot crap which I rated 5.9. The latter was at least based on him actually listening to the album, which wasn't the case with Enslaved

I was totally sure this was satire until I went back and read through all his comments on Daniell's review for that one Kamelot album. I can't believe anyone would be dead serious about this.

It's not that it's surprising that someone thinks the albums sucks. That makes perfect sense, since not everyone likes the same things. I don't mind seeing a negative review for an album I enjoy.

What really gets me is how he acts like he's an expert on this kind of thing, when he obviously has no idea what he's talking about (how do you get so many simple facts wrong, like the bit with them wearing makeup/corpsepaint, or Enslaved sounding like Immortal/Gorgoroth? Makes absolutely no sense). As you read along, everything he says just makes it seem more and more like he's never even touched the album, let alone listened to it. Until I found out the drama behind this whole thing, I was sure it HAD to be satire, since no one would get that many things so terribly wrong unintentionally. But I suppose I was wrong about that.

Anyway, it's nice that it's here for laughs, satire or no. I think the fact that it's deathly serious just makes it all the more humorous, so I suppose I appreciate that the guy wrote this...

I sincerely hope this is/was intended to be a troll review. Cause there is NO WAY the reviewer knows anything about this amazing album. Ugh that was a horrible read....

Review was made by a guy who since then became a site "meme". He basically got personally offended so much by Daniell's low rated review of Poetry For The Poisoned (which wasn't even low rated) that he decided to take out this "outrage" on the staff members who are "biased towards extreme metal" and disregard anything that "has melody in it" by downrating an album that was critically acclaimed with the staff.

The result is this review. Of course, that was before the guy got banned for making borderline nazistic comments against Daniell for him being polish.

Review was accepted/kept as a site in-joke along with that certain Opeth review.

I sincerely hope this is/was intended to be a troll review. Cause there is NO WAY the reviewer knows anything about this amazing album. Ugh that was a horrible read....

Review was made by a guy who since then became a site "meme". He basically got personally offended so much by Daniell's low rated review of Poetry For The Poisoned (which wasn't even low rated) that he decided to take out this "outrage" on the staff members who are "biased towards extreme metal" and disregard anything that "has melody in it" by downrating an album that was critically acclaimed with the staff.

The result is this review. Of course, that was before the guy got banned for making borderline nazistic comments against Daniell for him being polish.

Review was accepted/kept as a site in-joke along with that certain Opeth review.

Ohh, gotcha. Thanks for the insight. Good thing about the ban too, those types of comments should not be tolerated anywhere. If I were staff I would have banned him solely on the fact that he hates Enslaved